InfoSec has come and gone, and it’s largely what we expected. 

The weather was probably the most dramatic part of the three days, which is really what you want from a cybersecurity conference.

We sent four members of the Bora team to the show with one mission: hunt down the best examples of stand-out messaging among the sea of black booths, neon accents, and Osprey* backpacks.

Here’s what we learned after three days and 30,000 steps.

InfoSec grew up (a little)

One statistic summed up the audience demographics rather neatly. The queue for the men’s toilets was roughly five times longer than the women’s.

That said, the show itself felt more restrained than previous years. Vendors weren’t splashing cash simply to build booths bigger than their neighbours. In our opinion, that felt entirely appropriate.

We spotted exactly zero “booth babes” or their male counterparts. (To be clear, we dislike the term, but it’s still a welcome, if obvious, sign of progress.)

No one dressed as lamps. No one handing out handcuffs.

It felt… quieter.

Older.

Maybe even more confident.

Several big names were notably absent, including Proofpoint, CrowdStrike, and Palo Alto Networks. Perhaps they’ve reached a saturation point with event activations.

We’re still mentioning them, so make of that what you will.

As for the rest: 95% were forgettable. AI this. AI that. Many vendors just pasted their brand colours over five square metres of cardboard panelling and called it a day.

Anyway, that’s was the bad. Now for the good.

A handful of companies took risks. They made messaging decisions that would probably cause a corporate executive to start twitching. Instead of defaulting to #Version17, they committed to being memorable.

Which sounds obvious until you walk around a conference hall and realise how rare it actually is.

Marketing makes memories. Memories make money.

Before we get to calling out names, a few words on why this matters.

Marketing’s job is to plant memories in the minds of future buyers, so when a problem inevitably appears, your company is the one they think of first.

At events (or any channel you communicate on), you’re never trying to have the whole conversation. 

Your choice of materials, topics, tone, and medium should fit the moment.

Trying to say everything often means saying nothing. Messages get diluted into buzzwords, jargon, and vague promises that nobody remembers five minutes later.

Say just enough to spark curiosity.

Say just enough to earn the right to say more later.

These companies understood that.

Best copywriting: Vanta

Vanta’s marketing team committed what many tech CEOs might consider sacrilege.

They hired humans to write booth copy.

“Make audits your beach”

Their platform automatically gathers compliance evidence and monitors systems to keep companies secure and audit-ready.

Dry, wry humour, paired with beautiful imagery of llamas and yoga created one of the warmest spaces on the show floor.

Vanta reminded everyone that sucking the life out of everything with AI might not deliver the savings promised on paper.

Best swag: Torq

Torq indexed hard into the late 90s pop-punk and nu-metal nostalgia. 

Walking onto their stand felt less like entering a cybersecurity booth and more like stepping into a skate shop.

The team had invested in quality snapbacks too. The sort you wouldn’t be embarrassed to wear outside the industry.

Perhaps it’s a sign that many of tomorrow’s CISOs and senior decision-makers belong to the greatest generation of all.

The people born in the 1980s.

The Torq SOC platform helps security teams triage, investigate, and respond to threats faster. Their product message was equally sharp:

“Every alert needs attention.

Not every alert needs a human.”

Nice.

Most ballsy: Cybaverse

Cybaverse came out swinging. 

If you had one day left to sell before the end of the world, this is how you’d go about it.

“Fuck the chaos. Command your mission.”

This line was stopping people in their tracks. And CEO, Oliver Spence, and his team were there to greet them, fully committing to the energy they’d created.

Cybaverse connects every part of your environment, including endpoints, cloud services, applications, networks, identities, and external surfaces, and brings that intelligence into one platform.

In a room full of sanitised messaging, their conviction stood out.

Best solo act: AuthN by IDEE

Authn, or ‘that guy in Lederhosen’, AKA Al Lakhani! 

Al has spent more than 25 years investigating some of the world’s toughest financial crimes and cyber cases. He used that experience to build a company, as he put it, “entirely on zeros”.

“0 Trust. 0 Passwords. 0 Agents 0 PII. 0 Knowledge. 0 AI.”

The simple, repetitive messaging combined with Al’s experience, charisma, and Lederhosen made for a memorable pitch. 

It’s also hard to forget the ones who are not taking themselves too seriously, and have the credibility to back it up.

Honourable mentions

Menlo’s the Bot & Browser pub stood out like a sore thumb, in the best way. 

One moment you were at the Excel center, the next you’d wandered into a traditional English pub. The scenery, atmosphere, and mood changed instantly.

Redflags continued their sustainable approach from previous years. Their stand was made from recyclable materials, with plants to boot. Greenery shouldn’t feel revolutionary, but against an ocean of black booths and LED lighting, it somehow did.

Capsule wrote “Stop”. We did. Simple, effective writing. It caught our attention long enough for one of their team to start a conversation.

Cyware get a mention for the best conversation of the day. The staff were delightful. Genuinely charming. Approachable without being pushy. Curious without sounding rehearsed. We left feeling as though they genuinely wanted to help.

Panaseer managed to make cybersecurity jargon work by setting up a Clarity Clinic, a makeshift opticians promoting their products continuous controls monitoring. The play on 20/20 vision came through loud and clear with their Snellen chart featuring common cyber acronyms and buzzwords likeDORA, PCI DSS, NIST, phishing, and compliance.Simple, playful, and instantly understood.

Island spliced Severance aesthetics with a newly opened, old underground station. Their space was like getting into a time capsule, with amazing coffee (the barista we spoke with was a gem). They also had a very creative approach to their product messaging, printing materials to resemble stacks of old newspapers.

They would probably have taken our top spot if it weren’t for a 2026 newcomer, and our choice for category winner.

Best overall: Mindgard

The Mindgard team put in EFFORT, whilst spending a fraction of what others spent.

Their modest booth featured 1980s PCs, vintage movie posters, filing cabinets, and the sort of folding table you’d throw your mates through during backyard wrestling.

We had to stop and compliment them.

It turns out they’re also doing some very cool work securing AI agents.

“The Mindgard AI security platform discovers exploits, assesses risk, and defends AI systems and agents.”

Proof that you don’t need the biggest budget in the room.

You just need people to remember you.

What survives the show floor

The funny thing about InfoSec is that companies arrive hoping to start conversations.

Then spend three days sounding exactly like the businesses around them.

The brands we remembered made different choices. They committed to an idea, a point of view, a personality. Something with enough tangibility that people could carry it away with them.

Attention is fleeting, but memory has a surprisingly long shelf life.

If you’re planning your next campaign, launch, event, or category push, start there.

We’d love to help.

* Osprey, if you’re reading this, InfoSec 2027 might be a sponsorship opportunity worth considering.

About Bora

We’re Bora. We work with security companies to turn complex technical capabilities into clear, credible market narratives.

Get in touch for a free 30 minute consultation. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll help find someone who is.